OnePlus has long since passed its prime from being the “flagship killer” in the Android space. It slowly shifted from offering value-for-money smartphones to full-on flagships with secondary mid-range iterations. OnePlus launched the OnePlus 12 on December 11, 2023, making it the last big release of 2023. But with all that it has under the belt, OnePlus is aiming for the fastest Android experience in 2024.
Key Specifications of OnePlus 12
Design and Build Quality: Same Old Design with a Dash of Character
By all means, the OnePlus 12 looks exactly the same as its predecessor, the OnePlus 11. The merging round camera housing and all sides curved front reminisce the somewhat iconic design introduced with the OnePlus 10. The front glass features Gorilla Glass Victus 2 with the rear featuring standard Gorilla Glass. The back now has a marble-like finish with a glossy inlay on the camera housing.
The device comes in at 164.3 mm by 75.8 mm by 9.2 mm and has a hefty weight of 220g. Ports and buttons are all standard as usual. The power button, volume rockers, sim slot, and alert slider are all placed in their desired position. The phone comes with IP65 water and dustproofing rather than the standard IP68 seen on most flagship smartphones. In a sense, the design of the OnePlus 12 adds a minor refinement over their proven strategy.
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The Display: A New Standard for Brightness
OnePlus has recently been marred with green line controversies on its panel. And it seems like OnePlus has decided to completely overhaul the display tech with the OnePlus 12. The 6.82-inch LTPO AMOLED ProXDR panel comes with 1B colors, 120Hz refresh rate, Dolby Vision, and HDR10+ support. OnePlus has used a diamond pixel layout compared to the traditional square layout. It has a 1440 by 3168 pixels resolution with 510 ppi density and a 19.8:9 aspect ratio. The all-around curve gives the panel about 90.8% screen-to-body ratio. The display also supports 100% Display P3 and 10-bit color depth.
What’s interesting here is the brightness of the panel. The typical brightness holds at 600 nits and up to 1600 nits at HBM. But the panel can crank up to 4500 nits in peak mode. That’s more than any smartphone out there in the market by a long mile. And its something that won’t be exercised even in the harshest sunlight. On the flip side, the panel supports 2160 Hz PWM dimming for ultra-low brightness for nighttime use. All things considered, the display is definitely a highlight for the OnePlus 12.
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The Camera: Same Old OnePlus
The camera has consistently been a point of contention with OnePlus smartphones. And unfortunately, things haven’t really changed much. There’s a triple camera setup on the OnePlus 12 with the main camera being an updated 50 MP sensor. It has an f/1.6 aperture and a 23mm wide-angle opening. The additional sensors are a 64 MP, f/2.6, 70mm periscope lens with up to 3x zoom and a 48 MP, f/2.2, 14mm, 114˚ ultrawide shooter. The front camera is a 32 MP, f/2.4, 21mm wide-angle shooter.
All the sensors are stacked with features like multidirectional PDAF, OIS, and gyro-EIS. OnePlus has been partnering with Hasselblad for a customized color calibration. The pictures on the OnePlus 12 can be best described as slightly better than that of the 11 with somewhat similar flaws. Images have slight exposure issues with an average dynamic range. The camera is also post-processing heavy to the point that what you see on the screen grossly differs from what’s processed after the shutter click.
The videography of the rear cameras stay the same at 8K@24fps, 4K@30/60fps, 1080p@30/60/240/480fps. The selfie shooter can capture a maximum of 4K footage at 30fps. However, the exposure issue and low light videography leaves much to be desired from the Oneplus 12.
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